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Posts published in “Essays”

The Fox & The Leafhoppers

Is it time to confess environmental crimes against nature?  I had decided to expand my pot patch into a new area in the back forty,…

Warden Duffy

The warden of one of the world’s largest and most overcrowded penitentiaries might reasonably be expected to be a burly, hard-spoken disciplinarian, packing a gun…

The Thrill Of The Now

It was fitting that Rafael Puyana, the Colombian harpsichordist who died ten years ago in Paris at the age of eighty-one, should have made his…

Thanksgiving: Helping Those In Need

“Alright then,” announced Mr. Bumpers. “It’s decided. We’ll open the house to those less fortunate, like homeless-type people guests, right? All in?” Nods of agreement…

A Night At The Movies

It was late summer, 1987. A hot afternoon was fading into evening, after I'd spent the day working six games as an umpire in the…

It’s All Greek To Me

The word “melena” can be spelled and pronounced in two ways with profoundly different meanings. With the accent on the second syllable and an “i”…

Fragments From A Lost World

Seven miles offshore from a fishing village called Guanghai (“an opening to the sea”) in Taishan County, Guangdong Province, People's Republic of China are two…

Scorsese’s Take on the War Against the Osage

The Osage called the war that was waged against them in the 1920s a “Reign of Terror.” The terrorists were all white men—white settlers, white…

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